Daily Archives: 09/11/2015

Science, Sustainability

Get involved in Shell’s new schools competition and festival of innovation

The Bright Ideas Challenge

The answers to tomorrow’s energy challenges lie in your students’ ingenuity.

That’s why we’re launching an exciting new schools challenge that will see students aged 11-14 use their creativity to devise innovative solutions to the energy challenges faced by cities of the future.

With prizes for students and funded trips to the festival, one school will
be crowned national winner and will receive £5,000 to super-size its STEM lessons.

Register now to be the first to receive our curriculum-linked toolkit. It will help you support your class or STEM Club to push the limits and take on this challenge.

Teams will have until late April 2016 to submit their entries.

     Visit Make the Future

Join us with students aged 11-14 at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, on Thursday 30 June or Friday 1 July 2016. It’ll be a great way to round off the summer term.

At the festival, you’ll take a journey into the future of energy. Students will have the opportunity to explore how people use and create energy in everyday life. They can take part in hands-on activities, interactive science shows, competitions and engaging careers experiences.

They’ll also be able to watch student teams from across Europe who’ve designed and built hyper-efficient vehicles. The teams will be competing in Shell Eco-marathon to see how far they can travel on one litre of fuel.

Please note that your school might be eligible for a travel bursary.

English, Special Needs

A lesson to learn from Einstein

 Why do some of your seemingly bright pupils perform below average in tests that require them to handwrite the answer?

The infamous Albert Einstein clearly excelled at school in Physics and Maths, yet it appears he did not do so well in many other subject areas, including History, Geography and Languages.

Although there are a number of suggested reasons for this, including the rigidity of the German education system in the 19th century, it has also been suggested by researchers that Einstein had dysgraphia – a disorder in written expression.

The examinations for the subjects in which Einstein did not excel would have required lengthy handwritten answers (just as some subjects do today), unlike with examinations in Maths and Physics. Causing Einstein somewhat of a problem.

Therefore, even if Einstein knew the answers to the questions in his examinations, it is unlikely that the examiner would have been able to decipher his illegible handwriting and as a result could not award him the marks.

To see if your pupils, who may have a similar story to Einstein, have dysgraphia, Dysgraphia Help offer an online dysgraphia test for pupils over the age of 8 for £32.

After completing the test and sending us a sample of the pupil’s handwriting, you will receive a detailed report on whether or not we believe the pupil to have dysgraphia.

If we do believe that dysgraphia is present, you will also receive some supporting information on dysgraphia and a number of activity materials for the pupil to work through.

You can find more information on testing for dysgraphia by visiting www.dysgraphiahelp.co.uk/testing-for-dysgraphia/. Alternatively you can email admin@dysgraphiahelp.co.uk.